


before you walk away

by larabfb



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Hospitalization, M/M, Suicide Attempt, dan is his mentally ill boyfriend, i wrote this at like 2am im so sorry, phil is a baker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 16:34:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4632312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/larabfb/pseuds/larabfb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil sugarcoats his cupcakes; Dan sugarcoats his emotions, smothers them under layer after layer of petal pink icing, lets them soak in it until he feels like he's drowning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	before you walk away

**Author's Note:**

> I cried while writing this. (it was also 2 in the morning so go easy on me)  
> I might add a little more onto this later because it feels a little incomplete. (????) Not sure though.  
> Let me know what you think. I love y'all. xo
> 
> (title is from Fake You Out by twenty one pilots)

The pearls his mother used to wear were white, but when the light hit them at just the right angle, the soft tone of her infamous pink dresses reflected onto the glossy surfaces, turning them a dusty rose colour. It was the colour of his favourite frosting; the colour of Dan’s cheeks when he was embarrassed. (Phil had always found that incredibly endearing.) It also happened to be the colour of the sky on the day everything went to shit.

He only remembered that because he had ridden his bike to Dan’s that day and it caught his eye. He thought about it for a moment. He thought that maybe it was a sign; maybe the universe was trying to tell him something.

Phil, you should have stopped to listen.

Dan was laying on the counter when Phil let himself in the back door, eyes the same shade of pink as the sky, a pack of marlboros scattered across the cracked linoleum. He inhaled all of it a bit too quickly. His boyfriend laying shirtless on top of a granite countertop, trying his hardest to breathe steadily, tear tracks staining his cheeks; the way the whole kitchen smelled like vanilla; the bloody towel carelessly hidden behind the coffeemaker.

It was all Dan could do to turn his head towards Phil, part his petal pink lips, and tell him he didn’t know if he could do it anymore.

It dawned upon Phil that this was the one thing he could never fix. He wanted to, desperately. He needed to. (More specifically, he just needed Dan, more than he’d ever needed anything else.)

“I can’t lose you.”

Dan closed his eyes and smiled, holding his hair off of his forehead. “You'll never lose me.”

 

 

Two years ago, they laid on the hammock in Phil’s backyard, looking up at the stars. (Most of them were blurred out by the city lights. They didn’t care.) Dan leaned his head against Phil’s shoulder, gently traced his own little stars into the palm of Phil’s hand. “I want you to know something.”

“What’s that?”

“I wrote you something.”

“Did you really?”

“I did.”

Phil looked down at him, cleared his throat subconsciously. “Can I see?”

“Not yet.”

“Oh?” He was silent for a few precious moments. “You’ll see it someday. I promise. You’ll have it before I die. Trust me. I won’t go to my grave if I haven’t given it to you first. You just might have to remind me.”

“So I’ll have to wait, what, seventy years?”

(Dan just smiled as if he didn’t already have it all planned out.)

 

 

Phil put the phone down on the counter, ears straining to hear if there were sirens blaring in the distance. (They were there but his thoughts were racing and his ears were ringing and he couldn’t breathe right and he wasn’t sure if maybe he was hearing things or not.)

Dan picked up one of his hands - (it was heavier than lifting a weight) - and reached into the pocket of his black jeans, pulling out a piece of paper. (Over the last two years, it had been folded and unfolded and refolded again so many times that it was nearly falling apart. Phil couldn’t have cared less.)

“This is it.”

“Yeah.”

Phil held it in between his fingers, staring at it. He didn’t know if he had the strength to unfold it and look at what it said. “It’s a suicide note.”

“It’s an apology.”

“Dan, you have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Yes, I do. I owe this to you, at the very least.”

Phil sighed and set it down. “What did you do?”

“Pills,” he said quietly.

“How many?”

He doesn’t remember.

Phil presses his lips to Dan’s forehead, closes his eyes, tells himself that he doesn’t know how much more of this he can take.

(He’s going to break. He can feel it.)

 

 

_Hey Phil._

_Remember when we first met? It’s been a few years. I was twenty when I walked in your stupid pink cake shop with my mum for the first time. I’d just gotten out of the hospital. I don’t know if you knew that. I don’t know if it really matters. I was “better” - but I wasn’t, not really. Instead of feeling everything, I’d started feeling nothing. I don’t know which is worse, to be honest, but it didn’t matter, cause then you handed me a giant pink cupcake with my name on it and you looked into my eyes like you could see right through me and for the first time since I was fifteen, I felt something. And it felt really fucking good to feel again._

_I love your eyes, by the way._

_The first time I looked at you, I knew there was something about you I needed. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Turns out it wasn’t something about you. It was just you._

_You made me feel whole again, like you brought me back to life again. Kinda like a defibrillator. Or, maybe, a dePHILbrillator. Get it? Cause that middle syllable kind of sounds like your name? Haha. Dephilbrillator. Someone stop me._

_Why on earth do you put up with this??? You could have any other boy or girl in the world but you settled on someone who posts memes unironically and spends their free time coming up with bad puns._

_I wonder if you regret any of your past decisions involving me. I wouldn’t be surprised if you did._

_For the record, I don’t regret falling in love with you. It’s the best decision I’ve ever made. I just feel guilty cause I don’t deserve you._

_I feel like you give and you give and you give and you never take, you are everything I’ve ever needed and you gave that all to me in a heartbeat and I don’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to reciprocate for that. It’s like you gave me a million dollars and I only have a couple pennies to offer to you in return. I’m awful, Phil, truly, you deserve someone who can give you everything you need, and then some. You deserve so much more than a bipolar guy who acts like a 2 year old when he’s high and tries to swallow buckets of pills when he’s low. You don’t need someone who is so emotionally unstable that they can’t hold a real job. You don’t need that, Phil. You do not deserve to come home every night to your boyfriend sobbing on the bathroom floor, rather than someone who greets you with smiles and flowers and open arms. You shouldn’t have to lose sleep just so you can stay up and talk me out of killing myself._

_I think that what I didn’t realize is that I’m not just killing myself, I’m killing you. And that will never change. I’ve tried to get better for almost ten years and nothing’s worked. I can’t sit here every day and watch you decay alongside me. You’re so damn selfless, Phil Lester. You saved me. So now I have to save you._

_I tell myself time and time again that I can’t keep letting you feel like this._

_There are three things I want you to know._

_One: I’m sorry._

_Two: I love you._

_Three: I wish this could have ended differently._

_Right now, there are two hearts on the floor. One’s mine, both are yours._

_I am yours, Phil, I always have been and I always will be. You have all of my love. Whether you choose to accept it or not is completely up to you. It’ll always be here if you need it… and it’ll always be here if you don’t._

_I wish you could see how incredible you are. & I wish I could have loved you half as much as you loved me. _

_Dan. xx_

_p.s. I know you waited quite a while for this stupid letter and I’m sorry it couldn’t be better. I know, I know, my writing is shit and nothing makes sense. I’ll work on that._

 

 

Phil sat alone in the hospital waiting room, the letter burning a hole in his pocket. He closed his eyes but all he could see was Dan. Dan’s stupid sleepy smile that he gets when Phil wakes him up in the morning. Dan sitting on the counter kissing him during the slow days at work with frosting on his lips. Dan making star-shaped sugar cookies for him when he was sick. (They didn’t look much like stars from a distance, but then again, neither do the ones in the sky.) Dan’s stupid pretty eyes lighting up like Christmas trees when he got excited over little things. Dan’s dimples and his smile and the way he laughed. The way he talked, the way he moved, everything about him. Phil was so gone for this boy.

Fuck Dan. Fuck everything. He had it all backwards. It wasn’t Dan that didn’t deserve Phil, it was the other way around, and if he wasn’t in the emergency room having charcoal poured down his throat, Phil would have punched him. How could someone so smart be so stupid about the things that mattered most?

(He’d meant that as a rhetorical question, but in a few days he’d get a real answer.)

 

 

When Dan’s eyes opened again and he came back into himself, he was utterly confused. Why was he in hospital? What the hell happened that made it necessary for them put tubes down his throat and needles in his arms?

He had a weird taste in his mouth. The skin on his arms was paler than he’d ever seen it. (The scars on his arms stood out like blood on snow and that’s when he remembered.)

He realized that Phil was holding his hands over the side of the bed, tears streaming off his cheeks and pooling on the floor.

There was so much he wanted to say. He didn’t have the energy to get the words out of his mouth; Phil didn’t have the energy to listen.

 

 

He got home from hospital to find one of Phil’s most incredible creations sitting on his nightstand, a red velvet tiered cake covered in white fondant roses and whipped cream accents and pale pink frosting. It was fresh and it made the whole room smell like vanilla. (He couldn’t help but smile, even though it still hurt. He barely noticed.) But the best part was the calligraphic words Phil had artfully placed in a card on the top layer -

_You’re right, I might not deserve you, or vice versa. We may never deserve each other. But you’re all I want. Just the way you are. You always have been._

_I love you, for better or for worse. Welcome home._

_xx P_

 

 

Dan hugged him tighter than he ever had before. He cried. (They both did. They couldn’t stop.) But somehow their lips found each others’, and even through the tears, Phil still managed to taste better than his beautiful cakes ever would.

 

 

_It’s been a year._

_I’m so glad I’m alive. I’m so glad I’m with you. I’m so glad that I don’t cry anymore._

_What happened to me was shit but it led me to you and for that reason alone I regret none of it. I’d almost go as far as to say I’m glad I went through that. (But_ only _if it meant I’d find you.)_

_Thank you for everything._

_You’ve helped shape me into the person I am today. (The best version of myself that’s ever existed, honestly.) I think it’s safe to say that there is no me without you._

_You are my sun, my moon, and all my stars. I’m so in love with you and everything you’ve done for me. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to return the favor._

_All my love,_

_Dan_


End file.
